Lockdales

Toys from the Attack Force range are not the earliest of the Airfix models, but they are perhaps the most desirable.

As collectors are squeezed out of the market for watches by Rolex and Omega, prices for vintage chronographs by ‘lesser’ makers are steadily rising in value.

As the Scottish regiments went over the top on July 1, 1916 – the fateful First Day of the Somme – they were led into battle by the wail of bagpipes.

Among the most successful printing projects marking the Napoleonic Wars were the series of aquatints by Thomas Sutherland (1785-1838) after watercolours by the young William Heath (c.1795-1840) titled The Martial Achievements of Great Britain and Her Allies from 1799 to 1815.

Since its launch in 1953 there have been well over a dozen distinct references of the Rolex Submariner, with all sorts of minutiae adding up to several hundred different variants.

Before British female nurses could even help with the wounded they faced a battle to be accepted, as the story behind a medal winner reveals.

When buying back their heritage, Cardiff City FC and supporters may not be in the same financial league as Manchester United, but they were a welcome factor at Lockdales (19.5% buyer’s premium).

Less often seen than Suffragette propaganda and considerably less PC these days, a brass and enamel fob badge for the National League for Opposing Woman had its international admirers at Ipswich auction house Lockdales (19.5% buyer’s premium).

A cache of military diving watches sold in Hampshire and a £125,000 Daytona spotlight the thriving market for vintage mechanical ‘tool’ watches.

Catalogued as a ‘tin glazed hand painted Chinese vase – 17in (42cm) tall’ and estimated at £50-80, a late 17th century Kangxi period famille verte porcelain vase of waisted trumpet form sold on June 22 for a healthier £12,000 – 150 times the top estimate.

It was during the First World War that the convenience of the wristwatch began to replace the pocketwatch but it really came into its own with the production of bespoke ‘tool’ watches for submariners and airmen later in the century.

Heuer watches, steeped in racing history, are among the ‘secondary’ or ‘niche’ Swiss brands that have entered the mainstream collecting arena in the past decade.

Sylvia Gosse (1881-1968) was perhaps the best known of the women artists who worked closely with Camden Town Group luminary Walter Sickert.

Two unusual and successful lots from a February 20 sale held by Lockdales (19.5% buyer’s premium) of Ipswich.

Bram van der Stok MBE was not only the most decorated aviator in Dutch history and one of just three men to successfully flee POW Camp Stalag Luft III in the ‘Great Escape’, but also a proud member of the Caterpillar Club.